not creak loudly enough
to disturb that circle of mesmerized individuals listening to the
contralto magic.

There was only one small creak, halfway up.

Three rooms led off a narrow hall. One held a cot and a dresser and a
straight-backed chair. The second room he entered had a strange smell.
A smell he didn't recognize. Ink? Was that a mimeograph machine?
Something stirred in his memory, some picture he had seen of a
duplicating machine somewhere. This other dingus was undoubtedly a
typewriter--and this small gadget on the desk a stapler.

And here, on a small pine table, was a sheaf of four mimeographed
pages, stapled together.

The heading read, _The Heritage Herald_.

That was the name of their magazine. Printers, under the technical
interpretation of the law. A typewriter and a duplicating machine and
stencils and ink--and words.

Shakespeare, whoever he was, and Robert W. Service and Milton and an
original by S. Crittington Jones.

The original was a short-short tale about a wrestler and a cowboy and
a video comedian, a space-farce. There was a piece headed _Editorial_
by Martha Klein. It had a sub-heading--_For Those Who Are Willing To
Fight_.

It was a stirring and vigorous call to arms against the Arnold Law. It
was as subversive as anything Doak had seen in his Department career.

He folded the magazine, and put it into an upper jacket pocket. He
went to the third room and saw the paper stacked there and the bottles
of ink and new stencils.

He went back to the stairs, and quietly down them. From the living
room, he heard--

"'... From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad;
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
An honest man's the noblest work of God!'"

This was more like it, except for that last line the bard had
borrowed. This was the true giant, and who was quoting him? It was
not the contralto voice. Who?

He moved out to the kitchen and back to his vantage point. He took off
the infra-scope and looked into the living room. It was the old gent,
with the beard. And who else could it be? For wasn't he the cream of
the lot, the most obvious scholar, the most evident gentleman?
Scholarship and breeding seemed to flow from every hair in his beard.

"O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
From whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blessed with health and peace and sweet